Boro Goswami Bari

Getting there

• By train

  Shantipur railway station is well connected by EMU trains running from Sealdah railway station on the Main section.

• By road

  Private buses connect Shantipur with Ranaghat, Krishnanagar, Habra, Thakurnagar, Gaighata, Kalyani, Chakdah and Baharampur.

Why devotees come here

The Baro Gosai family of Shantipur, in Nadia district, West Bengal, worships Radharaman, the town's principal deity. The family descends from Mathuresh Goswami. The town's Ras and Dol festivals are thought to have been started by Mathuresh Goswami.

Legend says the deity was first installed as Dol Govinda, a statue of Krishna, in Orissa by King Indradyumna. When Pratapaditya of Yessore, now in Bangladesh, attacked Orissa, the temple priest gave the deity to his guru, Mathuresh Goswami, to keep it safe.

Mathuresh Goswami brought the idol to his ancestral home in Shantipur and reinstalled it in a new temple. A deity of Radha was later placed beside it, and both were renamed Radharaman. Radharaman is the principal deity of the town, worshipped in the Baro Gosai family, which descends from Mathuresh Goswami.

Shantipur is known for its Ras Utsav and Dol Utsav, which are thought to have been started by Mathuresh Goswami, the great grandson of Advaita Acharya. Rashyatra, the town's main festival, continues a tradition the Bara Goswamis introduced about 250 years ago.

Festivals

• On the day of RashyatraRashyatra

  The deities are taken in a grand procession around the city, with drums and kirtan.

Tips for your visit

• On Rashyatra the thrones are lit with age-old Belgian glass candleholders and chandeliers, not electric lights.
• On Rashyatra, a young girl called Rai-Raja is seated on a throne and paraded across the city to be worshipped as Radha.

Questions people ask